Taiwanese consumers have 3.4 years of online shopping experience on average, second only to their South Korean counterparts at 3.6 years, the latest MasterCard Worldwide survey across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions showed yesterday.
Nearly 70 percent of Taiwanese respondents said that online shopping was their main purpose in surfing the Internet, said the survey, which included the Taiwanese market for the first time.
In terms of method of payment and purchase items, nearly 60 percent of Taiwanese surveyed said they preferred paying by credit card when shopping online, with books, arts, home appliances and electronic products emerging as the most frequently bought items, the survey showed.
“[The results] indicated that online shopping and credit card markets in Taiwan will continue to prosper in the coming year,” Danny Cheung (張懷堅), MasterCard Worldwide area head for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, said in a statement.
The annual survey, which polled 8,000 consumers from 14 markets in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions between Nov. 6 and Nov. 26, showed that 80 percent of Taiwanese respondents were willing to conduct online shopping in the next half year.
“Taiwanese remained the most rational online shoppers in the Greater China area as more than 86 percent made planned purchases, followed by China with 79 percent and Hong Kong with 82 percent,” Cheung said.
On average, each Taiwanese online shopper spent a total of NT$16,408 (US$511) for the previous three months, the third highest amount after Hong Kong at NT$20,583 and China at NT$17,757, it said.
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